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End of…

I’ve been posting images of by gone #obseletemedia on Instagram. It’s funny going through old stuff that, relatively recently, (within 10 years) was so important to daily working life. But I’ve also been reminded that you should be careful about what you think is dead and gone.

I’ll be blogging about David Carson quite soon in reference to his influence on me as a Designer – Graphic and otherwise…
I have one of his books entitled “The End of Print“.
The ‘second’ edition!
Apparently it’s been pressed at least five times and was recently ‘revised’ for a new edition.

David Carson, in his TED talk comments on a remark made by William Burroughs at the end of Carson’s companion film “The End of Print“. It’s along the lines of when photography was taking off there were people saying that it was the end of painting.

On hearing this I was reminded of an anecdote recounted by Nick Harkaway (while speaking to the BBCs Andrew Marr about his book The Blind Giant: Being Human in the Digital World). Harkaway says that Plato reports Socrates saying that the development of writing and literacy would cause us all to stop remembering things because we could just go off and find it written down somewhere!

There are clearly great benefits to be had from digital technology and other modern conveniences but let’s not forget that we’re part of a much larger world than the mobile in our hands – even if we are led to believe that that mobile IS the the world in our hands.

The world is full of cognitive experiences and sensations that, as yet, are beyond our little ‘mobile buddies’. As much as I love the possibilities offered to me by my mobile device (that just happens to be capable of making phone calls) it’s still doesn’t offer anything like an alternative to the experience of talking to my kids, riding my bike through the woods or paddling my canoe down a river.

Having spent the last few months working part-time in a cheese shop. I’ve been reminded that some processes work best when they take a long time. All of the cheeses in the shop are typically between 12 and 22 months matured. We opened a cheese a couple of weeks ago that was sealed two days before my 40th birthday. My 40th seemed a very long time away (I just passed 41 and a half) but that happens to be the length of maturation for the Isle of Mull cheddar – and very good it is too as a result.

So not everything benefits from being super-convenient. And just because something convenient comes along it doesn’t mean that the other thing is done. Or finished. Or kaput!